The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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─ &ALT.2600 (1:340/26) ───────────────────────────────────────────── &ALT.2600 ─ Msg : 429 of 497 From : Ronell (Ron) Elkayam 1:340/13 01 Dec 95 11:53:56 To : All 01 Dec 95 18:57:12 Subj : Code Grabber -- The Scoup ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── .RFC-Path: news.spydernet.com!nntp.pinc.com!news.bctel.net!imci2!newsfeed.internetmci.com!v ixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.ecn.bgu.edu!newspump.wustl.edu!mitzi.rsmas.miami.edu!news .aoml.noaa.gov!newshost.fiu.edu!relkay01 From: relkay01@fiu.edu (.Ronell (Ron) Elkayam) .RFC-Message-ID: <49nmgl$nvs@isis.fiu.edu> .RFC-NNTP-Posting-Host: solix.fiu.edu .RFC-X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] The articles herebelow mention a tel # where you can purchase the anti-Code Grabber (called Code Rotator). Does anyone have the number for Kingfish Manufacturing in Long Beach (makers of Code Grabber)? I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment... ;) Thanx. **** BEGINNING **** SHOW: 6 News at 11 pm; WTVJ; Miami November 28, 1995 11:00pm; ET NETWORK: NBC MEDIUM: Television TYPE: Local LENGTH: 1840 words ANCHOR: Tony Segreto and Jennifer Valoppi BODY: [...] 11:14 pm Steve Daniels reports, in part one of a series, that thieves have a w-w weapon, an electronic device called the CODE GRABBER, that can open garage doors. (SB) John Kurzman, homeowner, says it is very scary. (SB) Kurzman. (SB) Kurzman says he is leaving his door open with this device. (SB) Chief Bill Berger, NORTH MIAMI BEACH POLICE, says criminals can get this and it will be hard for them to detect. (SB) Chuck Nowortny, WESTERN STATE INVESTIGATORS ASSOCIATION, says this is a clear public danger. (SB) Chuck. (SB) Mark O'Keefe, STREET SMART SECURITY, says people call them and are scared that people have easy access to their house. (SB) Kurzman. (C) CODE GRABBER, garage door opening, police officers meeting in Las Vegas, CODE ROTATOR. (V) How the Code Grabber works, costs $100, advertisements for CODE GRABBERS, tips include use appliance timer, unplug opener, CODE ROTATOR from STREET SMART SECURITY at 800-908-4737. **** SHOW: Today in LA; KNBC; Los Angeles August 10, 1995 6:00am; PT NETWORK: NBC MEDIUM: Television TYPE: Local LENGTH: 1453 words ANCHOR: Kathy Vara and Kent Shocknek BODY: [...] David Horowitz found " code grabbers" , a battery-powered device, easily obtainable, that decodes car alarms and garage door openers. (V) Code Rotator. **** SHOW: News at 11; KNSD; SanDiego July 20, 1995 11:00pm; PT NETWORK: NBC MEDIUM: Television TYPE: Local LENGTH: 1400 words ANCHOR: Marty Levin, Margaret Radford BODY: [...] For less than $300, people can buy a box that lets them use your garage door opener. A code rotator makes such a decoder worthless. (C) The new device. (SB) SAN DIEGO POLICE sergeant Jim Kurupas said thieves were using code grabbers. **** Chicago Tribune April 23, 1995 Sunday, CHICAGOLAND FINAL EDITION SECTION: TRANSPORTATION; Pg. 19M; ZONE: N; Safety '95. LENGTH: 643 words HEADLINE: CHIPPING AWAY AT CAR THEFT; ELECTRONICS COME INTO PLAY BYLINE: By Dean Takahashi, Knight-Ridder/Tribune. DATELINE: SAN JOSE, Calif. BODY: Chipmakers and carmakers are teaming up to put a dent in high-tech theft. The latest effort is by National Semiconductor Corp., which has created encrypted semiconductor chips that can make it a lot harder for thieves to outwit electronic devices that provide extra security for autos or garage doors. For several years, more cars have been coming with keys that have microchips that can transmit a security code before the ignition can be turned on. Such devices also are used for security in garage door openers, which send a code via a radio to open the door. Thieves have outwitted these devices by using so-called " code grabbers, " or electronic devices that allow them to steal the code from a distance as you're trying to unlock your car door or enter your garage. That has prompted carmakers and alarm makers to equip cars with chips that can send a rolling code, or a different code after every use. But the thieves figured out how to capture the formula, or algorithm, that the chip used to create the new code. Such high-tech car theft was especially popular in Italy, said Jim Jaffe, a product line manager at National. Now National's chip will use scrambling technology so sophisticated that thieves will have only a 1 in 281 trillion chance of decoding it. If the thief tried 1,000 codes a second, it would take 500,000 years to get the right decode, the company said. U.S. carmakers are expected to make anti-theft electronics a part of the cars for the 1996 model year, Jaffe said. "Insurance companies are beginning to require these anti-theft devices for lower rates," said Anne Gregory, a marketing manager at National in Santa Clara. "We think it's going to be a good market." National's chip could start appearing soon as part of an aftermarket car alarm kit or it will be available in a year or two in new models, Gregory said. The encryption chip costs $1.57 for orders more than 1,000 units. The chips would be part of a security system for a car. National officials think that price is a steal-no pun intended-compared to the cost of car theft. According to the FBI, 1.5 million cars worth $7.5 billion were stolen in the U.S. in 1993. "This is going to stop the car thief who is a hacker," he said. Thieves have outmaneuvered encryption chips by hot-wiring cars, or bypassing the key-ignition system. To deal with this problem, chipmakers expect newer cars to have standard security features, such as chips that can shut down a car if it isn't being used with the proper key. The number of chips in cars is expected to grow to an average of 35 by 2000, up from two in 1980. The value of the chips in each car is expected to rise to $500 in 2000 from $150 in 1994. Some new BMW models have more than 50 chips, said Tom Beaver, a marketing vice president for Motorola Inc., the largest maker of chips for cars. "Security technology has a lot of applications in the commercial world," said Neil Shea, director of embedded security chips at San Jose-based VLSI Technology. "We're looking at trying to solve problems from cellular phone fraud to car theft." Other devices can notify police of the location of a car if it has been reported as stolen. Taken together, these electronic devices can make stealing cars much more difficult. They also can raise issues about privacy. As much as technology advances, some thieves always find a way. In Southern California, car jackings (stealing cars from drivers at gunpoint) have become a part of everyday life. That's in part because low-tech criminals find it easier to steal cars with a running engine and the key in the ignition. "There are a lot of things you can do to make your car more secure," said Sgt. Tom McReady, in the auto theft unit of the San Jose Police Department. "But I don't know of any car that can't be stolen." **** Los Angeles Times March 25, 1995, Saturday, Orange County Edition SECTION: Business; Part D; Page 4; Financial Desk LENGTH: 344 words HEADLINE: THIEVES USING GARAGE-DOOR OPENER DEVICES FOR BURGLARIES BYLINE: By AMANDA COVARRUBIAS, ASSOCIATED PRESS DATELINE: SAN DIEGO BODY: Jim Boyle came home from work one Tuesday and noticed his garage door was open. Strange, because he had closed it when he left that morning. Inside his single-story house, someone had rifled through every closet and drawer, making off with $8,000 in leather jackets, fur coats, power tools and camera gear. Boyle had received a rude awakening to the high-tech world of garage-door opener burglaries. Like cellular fraud and computer hacking, this type of crime is another example of criminals using electronic gadgetry to ply their illicit trade. Police and security systems experts say burglars using electronic " code grabbers" can record and play back the signal from an automatic garage-door opener from hundreds of feet away. When Boyle left his house and activated his garage-door opener, a thief with a " code grabber" was able to retransmit the signal and open the door. He walked in -- and walked off with no telltale signs of breaking and entering. "It's like having a key to your house," said Mark O'Keefe, a salesman at Street Smart Security in La Mesa, a San Diego suburb. His colleague, Michael Lamb, 27, markets a device called a "code rotator" to combat the thievery trend. Each time the remote control is pressed, the code rotates to a new one, rendering a " code grabber" useless. A state law passed last year makes it a misdemeanor in California to use a code grabber for illegal activity. And Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) has introduced similar legislation at the federal level. Lamb's familiarity with the code grabber, which has surfaced in the past year, has made him an expert among law enforcement officials. Lamb bought his, for demonstration purposes, from Kingfish Manufacturing in Long Beach, one of the only manufacturers in the country. Jim Telenko, who owns Kingfish, said he designed the grabber for retailers and manufacturers, not criminals. "I imagine thieves would want to buy it a lot like they would want to buy handguns," he said. "But this device is perfectly legal. I designed it for the consumer." **** The San Diego Union-Tribune March 13, 1995, Monday SECTION: LOCAL; Ed. 1,2,3; Pg. B-4 LENGTH: 683 words HEADLINE: High-tech burglars zero in on homeowners' garages But some police say code grabber' no real threat yet BYLINE: JIM OKERBLOM Staff Writer BODY: An electronic device called a " code grabber" can give thieves easy access to your garage and home, some security companies are warning. In an instant, from hundreds of feet away, this book-sized $300 device intercepts the coded signal from a garage-door remote controller and copies it on a computer chip. By resending the copied signal later on, a thief can open the door. "It has an operating range of 500 to 600 feet and can operate any garage door it sees," said Michael Lamb, owner of Street Smart Security in La Mesa. "It's like having a key to your house." However, some police officials say that while code grabbers are a potential problem, right now the threat is more sales pitch than solid. "I don't see it as a real issue at this point, as far as being a burglary device," said San Diego Police Sgt. Jim Kurupas, who heads a police property crimes unit. Kurupas noted that most residential burglars are small-time criminals supporting drug habits and are not likely to spend a lot of money on tools of the trade. "Most of your guys out there -- your tweakers -- are not going to drop 300 bones to buy that thing," he said. Lamb's company is making and selling a $159 system that it says protects any garage-door opener from a code grabber. Called a "code rotator," it comes with remotes and uses a computer chip to change security codes continually. Lamb argues that the threat is real now and likely to increase. He cites Jim Boyle of Clairemont as a recent victim. Early in February, Boyle pulled out of his driveway and closed his garage door with the remote in his car. Later that afternoon, Boyle said, a yard worker found his garage door open. "There was no other sign of forcible entry," Boyle said. About $8,000 in jewelry, camera equipment and furs had been stolen from the house. Boyle says he is not sure how the thief opened his garage door, but he suspects that a code grabber could be responsible. He heard about Street Smart's code rotator and contacted the company. Street Smart has given Boyle's name to reporters pursuing the code-grabber story, Boyle said, but so far the company has not been able to sell him a code rotator because they are sold out. "They have made hay in the sunshine, while the news people are descending on me like locusts," complained Boyle, a civilian Navy employee. Concern about code grabbers, which also work on some remote-controlled car alarms, has prompted state and federal legislative proposals that would make it illegal to use one in the commission of a crime. Lamb first heard of them several months ago, he said, when some "little gang-banger kids" in his shop bragged about having one, but refused his offer of $500 to buy it. Lamb said he later found an advertisement for a code grabber in an industry magazine and purchased it from a Long Beach company for $300. Jim Telenko, who owns the Long Beach company, said he has sold a couple of dozen prototypes and plans to sell several hundred more. Telenko designed his device not as a burglary tool, he maintained, but as a sales tool for alarm and garage-door companies, which use them to demonstrate to customers the security risks from code-grabbing thieves. Telenko insisted that he screens his customers. "Before they can get their hands on one, they send me a photo copy of their business license or dealer's certificate," he said. Both Lamb and Telenko warn that other code grabbers are out there, however. "This device could be built by any competent third-year engineering student, Telenko said. "This isn't rocket science." But Sgt. Kurupas said he has only seen one code grabber so far -- the one Lamb bought from Telenko. "If some of these guys (burglars) figure out how to put one together, then yeah, I might be concerned," he said. "But a lot of these guys are not that advanced." Kurupas said he is not aware of any statistics that indicate code grabbers are being used much. "We have people going through roofs and smashing windows that I'm more concerned about than this thing," he said. GRAPHIC: 2 PHOTOS; 1. Electronic thief in action: Devices like this one can intercept and record the frequency specific to a garage door opener, enabling burglars to open them at will later on. 2. Possible cure: Eric Allen of Street Smart Security displays a device that can defeat code-grabbing technology. **** Proprietary to the United Press International 1995 March 6, 1995, Monday, BC cycle SECTION: Regional News DISTRIBUTION: California LENGTH: 378 words HEADLINE: Thieves using electronics for burglaries DATELINE: SAN DIEGO, March 6 BODY: Thieves are using electronic radio frequency counters to intercept and decode signals from automatic garage-door openers and burglarize homes, authorities said Monday. San Diego police say the thieves are also using the devices to break into alarm-protected cars. Such burglaries are hard to track because the thieves leave no trace the home or vehicle has been broken into, said Officer John Graham. ''It's a silent, high-tech tool for crime,'' said Huntington Beach police detective Chuck Nowotny, who is president of the Southern California Burglary and Theft Investigators Association. The so-called '' code grabber' ' records and duplicates the radio signal in the garage door opener or car alarm from hundreds of feet away. ''So what a thief can do is sit in his car and monitor houses in front, behind and the next block over,'' said Michael Lamb, technical manager for Street Smart Security in La Mesa. The thief can use the pilfered codes to open the garage, drive his vehicle inside, get into the house and loot it and close the garage door behind him when he leaves. ''And if you're not aware that his is how it was done, he can come back and do it again,'' Lamb said. ''It's like having a key to your house.'' The device can be purchased for about $300 or made from scratch with parts available in most electronics stores for about $25, he said. The device is ususally contained in a 3 x 5-inch box. The technology is similar to that used to clone cellular phones. Theft of cellular phone codes cost the telephone industry an estimated $2.5 billion last year. ''I have yet to catch anyone using one of these ( code grabber) devices,'' Nowotny said. ''However, the technology is there and it works.'' The devices are advertised in electronics magazines and are legitimately used for testing the remote units in garage door openers, Lamb said. California law makes it a misdemeanor to use a code grabber for illegal activity. The only known way to combat the threat is to install a ''code rotator'' that rotates the code each time the remote is pressed. The rotator produces 70 billion codes so the same code is never repeated, making the '' code grabber' ' useless. The rotator sells for $159. **** THE END **** -- W/love, | Owner & Programmer: The People's Voice BBS @ 305-937-6468 | No pregnant women or heart-conditioned senior citizens are Ron | allowed. Under 42 must get parents' permission to call. Miami, FL | "THIS IS WHAT YOUR MOTHER ALWAYS WARNED YOU ABOUT" Don't bother to call... FCC disconnected the line on basis of board being "obscene". New number coming soon! Tapes avail. --- ifmail v.2.8.lwz * Origin: The People's Voice, 305-937-6468 (1:340/13@fidonet)